


Everywhere and Nowhere

by autoeuphoric (FreezingRayne)



Series: Make this Place Your Home [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, guys just shut up and make out, haru likes the pool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreezingRayne/pseuds/autoeuphoric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin wants something from him, something that hides huge and telling behind his eyes, twisted up like wire by years of agonizing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everywhere and Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic I've written in a year and a half. I used to be quite prolific, but it's been all original stuff recently. But I could not resist the lure of Rin and Haru.

The room is wide and echoing and dark. Green emergency signs glow above the doors, and the pool gives off its own cool blue luminescence. Floating on his back, staring up at the shifting shadows on the ceiling, Haru feels like he’s drifting apart. He is just sensation, everywhere and nowhere at once, like the water. 

“You’re not supposed to be in here.” 

Haru shifts his hips minutely, letting his weight pull him slowly vertical. Rin is standing at the shallow end, wearing a dark hoodie and a darker scowl. 

Haru says, “Report me.” 

Rin digs his hands into his pockets in a moody slouch. “How do you keep getting in here?” 

“Your sister gave me the key.” 

“Gou has a key?” Rin’s eyes narrow. “Where did she get it?” 

“No idea,” Haru says, although he suspects Rin’s team captain would give Gou anything she asked for. 

Rin says nothing else, just glares at him, so Haru goes back to floating, but he is unable to slip back into that blank, formless space. Rin’s presence is an open window in a rainstorm, a pot left over an open flame. He is distracting. 

When Haru resurfaces again, Rin is watching him, eyes shadowed by a mass of hair that is lumpy and tangled, like he had washed it and then slept on it without drying off. Haru doesn’t need to see his face—he’s memorized that look. Rin wants something from him, something that hides huge and telling behind his eyes, twisted up like wire by years of agonizing.

“Are you going to swim, or not?” Haru asks, before striking off for the deep end of the pool. 

A couple of seconds later, he hears the splash. He would wait for Rin, but he knows that will only piss him off. So he keeps swimming, propelling himself with slow, lazy kicks, not trying for speed or any particular technique—just enjoying the feeling of the water against his body. 

Rin catches up to him in the center of the pool, where the water is deep and cool. 

“We might get caught,” Haru cautions. 

“Like I give a fuck.” They tread water for a minute or so. Rin glares at the surface of the pool like it’s calling him names. “You want to race?” he asks finally.

“No.” 

Rin looks up at him. 

“I don’t feel like it. Besides—you’ll just beat me again.” 

Rin’s face twists as he visibly fights down his irritation. “Fine,” he finally bites out. 

They stay just like that for awhile, Rin looking at the surface of the water and Haru looking at Rin. There is a worn tension around his eyes and mouth, like the flare-up of an old ache. It makes him look unusually vulnerable, and it makes Haru wish he could fix it.

In the water, he is daring. In the water, things happen like they are meant to. 

They've drifted, and it only takes a few strokes to crowd Rin against the side of the pool—like he had pinned him to the fence to shout at him, except Haru doesn’t shout. Rin makes a noise—half shocked, half angry, and his hands slip off Haru’s shoulders. Pushed up against the concrete there’s no room to tread water, and he goes under, grabbing at Haru reflexively. He pulls himself up a moment later with an splutter, eyes glowing and manic, hair matted to his forehead. He coughs. 

“Haru, you psycho—.” 

“Stop wriggling,” Haru says. He braces one arm against the wall and wraps the other around Rin’s waist, like they’re dancing instead of swimming. Rin is staring at him like he’s gone crazy. Haru reaches up to push the hair out of Rin’s eyes, and feels him go very, very still. 

“What the hell are you doing?” 

Haru’s fingers snarl in a tangle, and he leans in to kiss Rin’s wet mouth. It tastes like chlorine and unflavored chap stick—the kind you can buy in bulk at the 100 yen store. Rin is all ridged muscle and alarm, then he sags against Haru like he’s exhausted, like he’s been running for a million years and he’s finally found he can stop. 

His arms end up draped over Haru’s shoulders (even more like they’re dancing) and they’re both breathing so hard it's more like panting into each other’s mouths than actual kissing. It’s not very sexy. 

Rin gives up on Haru’s lips after a couple of seconds and goes after his neck instead, licking up the large tendon, following it up to just under his ear. The spot is soft, but the jolt Haru feels in his stomach is definitely not. He finally loses his failing grip on the side of the pool, sending them both slipping into the water. Rin lets go before they go under. 

“This is bullshit,” he grunts, eyes bright, face painted in cool light from the surface of the water. “C’mon.” 

It turns into a race halfway there. Rin wins, just like Haru said he would. 

“Haru…” He sounds uncertain, as if he’s worried something has changed between the deep end and the shallow. 

Haru pushes wet hair aside and reaches for him. 

Now that they have their feet on the ground, there is nothing to distract him from the taste of Rin’s mouth or the texture of his skin, or the feeling of blunt nails scraping across his back. 

The water stills around them until there is no sound but their breath. Haru has never kissed anyone before, but it doesn’t seem to be that complicated. Rin sucks on his tongue and runs his hand over his torso and arms like he’s trying to memorize it. He lowers his hands and squeezes Haru’s ass, pulling him more firmly against him. They let out simultaneous groans, then break apart to laugh softly. 

“This is impossible,” Rin says, though he doesn’t let go of Haru. “I think I’m probably dreaming right now.” 

_You dream about this?_

Haru doesn’t ask. He brushes his knuckles across Rin’s abs, feeling them tighten. 

The echo of a door closing slams through the cavernous room, multiplied like thunder. They go instantly still. They wait, but the pool remains silent. 

“Shit.” Rin wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looking everywhere but at Haru. “You live alone, right?” 

“Huh?” Haru blinks. “Yeah. Why?” 

“Are you serious?” Rin rubs his forehead. “Are you seriously asking me that question? You know why, asshole.” 

“Oh.” Right. Sex. 

Haru tries to imagine it and can’t. It’s a stupid worry, but it feels like if they were to leave the pool, leave the water, things would go back to the way they were a half an hour before. Rin hating him, avoiding him. 

But Rin is already climbing out, briefs clinging wetly to his body. He turns around and offers Haru a hand, which he takes. The air is chilly after the water, and he shivers. 

Rin steps back and looks at him, and there is a quality in the angle of his shoulders that make Haru think he’s misunderstood all of this, read too much into it, that _he really is going to leave_. Then Rin grabs him by the hair and kisses him so fiercely that the shivers are gone, replaced by a shuddering heat that starts in his cheeks and burns down into the rest of him. 

“You didn’t bring a towel, did you?” Rin asks, on the way out the unlocked emergency door. 

“No.” 

“You’re going to freeze.” Rin’s fingers brush his wrist. The heat stays. It’s there for good. 

“I’ll be fine.”


End file.
